The present invention relates to computer memory management, and more specifically, to intelligent caching techniques.
Network-managed data by service providers has become increasingly popular, as the amount of data utilized by business enterprises and organizations has increased. The costs associated with hardware and storage devices, as well as their associated bandwidth requirements have made network-managed solutions more desirable. One of the known challenges of this solution is the control of the data being stored by a service provider. While the data is owned by the business enterprise, it is not always under the control of the business enterprise, e.g., when bandwidth constraints for the network are present or when network systems become inoperable for various reasons. Indeed, there are SLA policies adherence in place, but the risk still remains that network-stored data may become unavailable to the data owner.
What is desirable, therefore, is a way to increase the availability of network-stored data when it is needed.